02/18/2015

The leaders of the Inquisition meet at the War Table, and they are all women, save the surly fallen templar. At first, I am thrilled. I have never seen so many women in power in a game, and all of them uncritically and unanimously welcomed into leadership positions by our followers.

But then the reality of running the Inquisition sets in and I am anxious. What does it mean that this reactionary power grab is driven and dominated by women?

[Mild spoilers follow.]

I'd been looking forward to the next Dragon Age game since I finished Dragon Age II. I longed for the return of my Hero of Ferelden, whom I had installed as Alistair's beloved queen, with all her companions alive and resolved. The City of Amaranthine had been saved and Vigil's Keep rebuilt. I considered Dragon Age II something of an extended side quest -- enlightening and moving, certainly, but let's get back to the main storyline now, please. (Although it was great fun dallying with Fenris.)

When the title was announced, I was intrigued. "Inquisition" conjured a world of darkness.* The word, in its most well-known incarnation as the Spanish Inquisition, recalled a specific and extended period of time when the ruling class exploited religious faith to silence political rivals and consolidate power. It denoted a time when the Church tortured in order to extract false confessions, then massacred people by sadistic methods.

Such a fraught historical context offers a variety of complicated power structures to explore, including the intersections of race, class, belief, political and economic power, and gender. Within that framework, one could critique ideas like the efficacy of torture or frame the Inquisition as a reactionary response to an increasingly multicultural and freethinking society (as Spain was in medieval times).

I wondered how the game would handle these weighty issues. I was interested, and I was nervous.

Dragon Age II gave us a taste of the brutal interrogation methods employed by the Seekers of Truth, so I was primed to despise them when I started Inquisition. I was certain that somehow my new hero (for it had been already confirmed that my Queen wouldn't be joining us on this adventure) would be the leader of the resistance against the Inquisition. As the so-called Herald of Andraste, she would inspire rebel forces to fight against this radicalized, militarized arm of the Chantry.

I got the game over Thanksgiving and spent most of the weekend immersed in it. Since then, I've finished a playthrough and started two other with different characters and different world state imports. So the game is compelling to me. In some senses, I find it deeply attractive.

It is also very troubling.

Early in the game, the interrogator of Dragon Age II asks -- commands, really -- my hapless Herald to risk her life for the greater good. Of course, my Herald doesn't know that her captor is the same one who held and tortured** Varric.

But I do. "Don't go with her!" I want to shout at my Herald. I don't trust the Seekers of Truth. They seem power-mad to me, operating on the same level as the worst Jacobins during the Terror or the Stalinists during the purges. Any group who claims to adhere to "one and only true faith" is suspect in my book, and dangerous. Because they are ultimately the only ones who get to decide what "truth" is, and therefore they control a monopoly on it. It's a hideous, if very familiar, method of ideological control.

When the moment came, however, my Herald did not say, "I refuse to join the Inquisition." She did not spit in the torturer's eye and say she'd rather die than be party to this monstrous operation.

She was conscripted against my will. She, the poor naive dupe, went along with everything her captor said. Even Varric, the dwarf who'd been tortured, seemed completely at ease with his experience, making me wonder if he suffered from Stockholm Syndrome. He seemed awfully cavalier about the whole business.

As the game went on, my Herald continued to advance the Inquisition's power and influence, metaphorically displayed on a giant map at the War Table. Areas fell under our control. We "pacified" them, wiped out resistance, and employed Leliana's skills to maintain control through a mix of subterfuge, assassinations, propaganda, and brute force. Everywhere we went we planted flags to announce that our forces had swept through here and now controlled the area.

Just as every dictator has done throughout history.

It made me ill. My Herald even started recruiting others to join her cause, often using the threat of blackmail, or sometimes exploiting their grief. She was completely corrupt.

And yet, I believe the game wanted me to believe that she was noble. She didn't seem to have any self-awareness of her actions. Time and again in the War Room she and her advisors spoke of the need for "stability" and "order" and "peace" -- justifications used by those in power over and over again to maintain their power. The mages who wanted freedom? Slaughter them. The templars who broke from the Chantry? Renegades to be hunted down. The Seekers themselves? Once the Inquisition comes to power, they are a threat that will be eradicated. The kingdoms of Orlais and Ferelden are brought to their knees in subservience to the Inquisition, and it has grown so powerful that the Herald can name the new Divine, the head of the Chantry. She can choose to nominate the torturer or the ruthless, vengeful spy.

Even more so than the choices in Dragon Age II, the options seem bleak. Thedas is in for a rough few decades.

I wonder if the game means for me to have this reaction to the naked and unethical exercises of power it sets me up to enact. I don't think so. I don't think so because the game is, actually, delightful in many ways. The banter between the characters is by turns charming, sweet, funny, and emotionally charged. The environments are lavish and invite the sort of deep exploration I indulged in during Skyrim. Many NPCs who aren't bandits or evil templars react to the Inquisition with respect and gratitude, which seems a bit unrealistic. Many of the side quests are about helping people with mundane tasks, which seems at odds with the grand and urgent mission of the Inquisition itself. Again and again we are told that the Inquisition is the One True Power that can hold the world together and fight off the enormous threat. (But we are never allowed to explore an alternative -- say, a coalition of nations, or a new task force that has no ties to prior power structures.)

The game never interrogates the Herald's actions. There are, so far, no negative consequences to any of her nefarious deeds. The game seems to be confirming that the end justifies the means, and that these methods are just the way politics and power work. The game normalizes these actions over the course of the sixty hours I've spent in it. None of my companions tell me I am wrong, none of them want to leave the Inquisition, even those who seem would be the most ideologically opposed to what we've become.

I wonder if the next game will be a reversal. The Herald will be demonized as a power-mad tyrant, the Inquisition as a behemoth, out of control, tramping over nations' self-determination, with the Chantry in its pocket. The Inquisition, thanks to the spymaster, has an unsavory reputation for quietly eliminating inconvenient protests.

I look around the War Table at the power brokers: Leliana, who has transformed from the sweet sister of the Chantry to an amoral, cynical mistress of espionage; Cassandra, the fanatic; Josephine, the compromiser; Morrigan, the opportunist (and ironically, given my prior history with her, the one I trust the most in this group). (Cullen is almost an afterthought, since Cassandra and the Herald are more than capable of commanding the troops). The Inquisition is driven by diabolical women.

In the next game, I fantasize, my Hero of Ferelden will team up with Hawke to take down the Herald of Andraste, and destroy the Inquisition once and for all. She will scatter its pieces to the corners of Thedas and bring the nations together to pledge that nothing like this will ever again be tolerated in the name of preserving the peace.

She's the only one who can.

*There is a great deal of mythology surrounding the inquisitions, which have made it difficult for historians to depict its true nature. There was a backlash against the Catholics, and Protestant movements created anti-Catholic propaganda that capitalized on the brutal methods used by inquisitors. However, there is still plenty of evidence that tens of thousands of people were executed or imprisoned.

**On rereading this essay, I realized that it is never made explicit that the Seeker tortures Varric, although we do see him dragged against his will into the interrogation chamber. Additionally, to me at least, the character of Cassandra was intense enough that I fully believed her capable of torture to suit her own ends, and at the time I played the game, I assumed that Varric had been subjected to such methods of interrogation.

08/12/2014

The death of Robin Williams hit me hard yesterday. I'm not entirely sure why. My Twitter stream was filled with Robin Williams reactions alternating with reactions to the horrific events in Ferguson and those two things combined sent me into a mini-depression spiral.

And then came the flood of well-meaning exhortations to "reach out" and "hug someone" and "get help".

And that just sent me into a mini-rage.

Because it doesn't work like that, and I know you think you are helping, but it doesn't help.

(Now I'll add a disclaimer here and say that, of course, this is my personal reaction, and other people suffering from depression may feel differently, and that's expected and totally fine. I don't speak for all depressed people out there, and I don't presume to understand how someone else processes emotions and inputs. But I'm guessing that my reaction is not unique and perhaps it's one that you, well-meaning person, have not considered yet. In which case, please do consider it.)

Would you tell a cancer patient to get help? Duh, they know that. They know they need help. They know they need to keep taking their drugs, keeping going to chemo, keep taking whatever treatments they and their doctors have decided on. And you know what? They could do everything exactly right, and still die. And that's what they live with, every day.

Life's fucked up that way.

Telling a person suffering from depression that "there's hope" and "I'm here for you if you need me" and "help is out there" is, frankly, insulting. Because you don't know what is going on in their lives. You have no idea. Even if you, too, suffer from depression, you don't know what the other person is dealing with. You don't know the nature of their depression, or who has just died, or what financial straits they're in, or what they've suffered and are suffering. You don't know what sort of access that person may have to health care. You don't know that person's past. How do you know there's hope? How do you know there's someone to talk to? I will decide whether there is or not. I'm the one that lives with my disease, every day. And I could do everything right and still not be "okay", whatever that means.

Please stop and consider what you are saying in a public space when you don't actually know anyone's actual circumstances. Please stop and consider what you are saying when you urge someone to reach out, or when you reassure someone, in a public space, that you are there for them. There for who? To whom are you speaking? Your words, in the public, open context of Twitter/Facebook, are meaningless and potentially alienating. They become empty platitudes that are overly smplistic, even though I know you mean them sincerely. And they can actually make someone feel worse.

If you truly want to help, here's what you can do. Express sympathy. Ask how you can help.

Call someone you love, or send them a text or email and say you love and appreciate them. If someone does want to talk to you, be there. Listen. Don't judge. Don't tell them what they should do to fix themselves, unless they specifically ask you for advice. Donate to organizations that are doing good work in treating mental health, or raising awareness. Volunteer for said organizations.

08/01/2014

I was thinking last night that I consume a lot of media, and I want to be more mindful about it. So I'm going to keep track, every Friday, of a selection of things I've read, watched, listened to, and played. This isn't comprehensive and it's not a best-of list -- just things that I remember when thinking over my week on Thursday night.

Books:

The Lotus Palace, by Jeannie Lin. WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME ABOUT JEANNIE LIN'S BOOKS?!? I feel like I have been wanting Asian historical romances FOREVER. This one is set in Tang Dynasty (which makes Heian Japan's capital city look like a sleepy little backwater town) and has one of the best romances I've seen. Lin doesn't shy away from the status and constraints of women at that time, but also shows the diverse ways women survived. I love the hero and heroine -- their conflicts are very real (not just their class difference, but they have some philosophical differences to overcome) and they're both so smart and brave. BONUS, there's a mystery! Basically the only thing it's missing is a unicorn.

The Giver, by Lois Lowry. I kind of don't get this book. Maybe it's not as obvious a premise to someone who's never read Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Ormelas" but I was kind of like "Yeah, we get it, utopia is not perfect because people have to be sacrificed - AND?" and waiting for the twist -- which never came. I might feel differently if I'd read it as a twelve-year-old. The idea of being able to control memory is cool, though.

Crossed Genres Magazine 2.0 Book Two , Edited by Bart R. Leib and Kay T. Holt. I've read about 60% of this! Most of the stories are really great. I'm not usually a big short story reader, but it's nice to have a big collection. Crossed Genres does a really cool thing where they reserve a spot for a debut writer each issue -- unfortunately you can usually spot the debut story, since it's pretty weak in comparison. But overall it's a great collection and I'm reading Book One next.

Sampled:

Legacy Code, by Autumn Kalquist - Dystopian Sci-fi. I found the sample confusing, although there are some interesting ideas at play. It's not really clear what the story promise is. Also the writing is competent but not great. Doubt I'll purchase.

The Hidden Blade, by Sherry Thomas - Ooh, fun! Starts in 1873 and jumps between China and England, told from the POV of two children. Very intriguing, emotionally vibrant. I'll probably buy.

Queen's Gambit, by Elizabeth Freemantle - As someone who DEVOURED Phillipa Gregory's books, I was bound to love this. Set during the latter years of Henry VIII, it's about a clever widow who expertly navigates the dangerous politics of the Tudor court. Probable buy.

Butterfly Swords , by Jeannie Lin - A dual-wielding heroine and a foreign devil hero? SIGN ME UP. Another Jeannie Lin histoical set in Tang dynasty China. Oh man, my wallet is sure going to be sorry I ever discovered her. Because she has many, many books out and I WANT TO READ THEM ALL. Buy.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century , by Thomas Piketty -This is one of those books I know is "good for me" and will probably explain a lot but I'm almost too depressed to keep going. Income inequality makes me so upset and angry ... but maybe Piketty will offer some solutions? I don't know. I might put this on my wishlist and borrow it at the library.

The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus, Book 4) by Rick Riordan. Not sure why I never got into the Percy Jackson series. I know reading this is kinda coming into the middle of the story but I found the sample way more interesting than the Lightening Thief sample I read ages ago. But interesting enough to buy? Probably not. This one's for the library list.

Yamada Monogatari: Demon Hunter by Richard Parks. I'll be honest, I was expecting this to be orientalizing but I was pleasantly surprised by the sample. It's got energy and spirit and I love the setting. (Ghosts in Heian Japan!) Probably a buy.

Films:

The Internship: It had funny bits, for sure, and this is the most I've liked Vince Vaughn since Swingers. But it seems like a giant ad for Google and some of the jokes that are supposed to mock how old Vaughn and Wilson are come off as really lame and unrealistic. (What 40-something actually says "on the line" instead of "online"??!?)

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit: It's basically Jack Ryan AKA Jason Bourne. Kevin Costner, I must say, has aged well, and Chris Pine has an appealing swagger but there's so much of this movie that seems utterly irrational. (And I'm trying not to be nitpicky about movies anymore but sometimes the details are just too weird.) Still, decent action movie and it's fun watching a great actor like Kenneth Branaugh really sink is teeth into the villain role.

Sky Crawlers: I'm still mulling over this one. It's dark. And very strange. But also incredibly beautiful.

TV:

Leverage, Season 1 Episode 8."The Mile High Job." So this show -- I'm very conflicted about this show. Sometimes I think it's great. Sometimes it's so boring. But I'm s huge sucker for heist shows and for ensemble shows, and it hits those buttons beautifully. Also, the message of taking down corrupt rich dudes is pretty timely. And, I love Gina Bellman (who will always be Crazy Jane from Coupling to me.)

Merlin, Season 5 Episode 8. "The Hollow Queen." This is a couple episodes where the show, for me, really starts to lose coherence. Women have never had it great in Camelot, and with Morgana reduced to smirking like evil-witch-lady and now, Guinevere suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, things are looking very bad for our ladies. I could GO ON about this plot point, but I won't. For now.

True Blood, Season 7 Episode 5. "Lost Cause." I'm still not over Alcide. It's almost as bad as when the Sherrif of Storybrook died. :( :( But this episode is gold if only because of Pam and "Republic*nts". Don't ever change, Pammy!

07/30/2014

In 2008 I sold a book-in-progress for $200,000 ($170,000 after commission, to be paid in four installments), which still seems to me like a lot of money. At the time, though, it seemed infinite. The resulting book—a “paperback original,” as they’re called—has sold around 8,000 copies, which is about a fifth of what it needed to sell not to be considered a flop. This essentially guarantees that no one will ever pay me that kind of money to write a book again.

It took me a while to realize that my book had failed. No one ever told me point-blank that it had.

It was more like the failure occurred in tiny increments over the course of two years, after which it was too late to develop a solid Plan B.

This is my nightmare. That I will have failed and, because I didn't think to set up the proper criteria for success, or because I was delusional, or not paying attention, or whatever, I wouldn't even realize it.

Maybe that's why artists go around half the time assumed they've failed. (The other half of the time, we're certain that we are geniuses ahead of our time.)

07/29/2014

I know a lot of very fine people on Patreon. So it's with some embarrassment -- maybe even shame -- that I confess the whole concept kind of makes me uncomfortable. But my thoughts around it are really not very clear, so I'm just going to list a bunch of questions I have about it, and maybe that will help me figure out my thoughts.

Is it the 21st century equivalent of passing the hat around after a street performance?

And if so, is there anything wrong with that? (Yes: they don't always cough up the dough.)

In theory, it's great; and Patreon founders have this very rah-rah let's-all-support-each-other way of talking about this that makes the optimist inside me shine with rainbows while the cynic hurls. But in the end, does Patreon simply perpetuate a class system that I hoped died out with the di Medicis? (You can say it -- how naive of me.)

What does a creator owe a patron? What do patrons expect? Is it like a donation, or more like a subscription? Will creators be free, or will they feel burdened and beholden to their 20, 300, 1000 patrons? (I suppose if you have 1000 patrons you've figured it out and you're doing all right. Unless they're each giving you 50 cents, in which case, you should look for richer patrons.) Say you're doing really well, and you're making enough to get by, pay your rent, manage. Will other potential patrons decide you've earned enough and decline to support you?

Does Patreon constructively add to the conversation of what art and and artist are "worth"? Does it successfully intervene in a broken system, or does it simply patch it up and replace it with another, just as broken?

This is a larger issue of course about supporting the arts. I'm not, I should say now, a capitalist. I don't believe that some mythical free market will distribute money equitably to those who "deserve" it, who provide "value." No. I'm an anti-capitalist in fact. Capitalism is completely broken. And the fact that creators go broke is a symptom.

But Patreon feels so ... regressive to me. We're going back to the time of generous rich patrons, who pay big bucks to be inserted into a church triptych, and have pissing contests over whether their Michaelangelo is better than that other guy's artist. Okay, I exagerate. Many of Patreon's patrons are not, in fact, rich. There's a lot of evidence that many creators are funding each other. And I totaly understand that we need a new, healthy ecosystem that can support the arts.

How about we increase funding for the arts? How about we work on diminishing inequality across the board? How about we create a government that commisions works of art, that funds libraries who buy books and music and magazines? How about we fund school to pay artists to come give workshops and lectures to classes? How about we stop Wall Street predation? How about we, I dunno, start a fucking revolution so we aren't faced with the grim sight of artists begging for livable salaries? (Among many other sights that are, admiteedly, far worse. Prisons, hunger, mental health, too many guns, you name it, we got it.)

I'm sorry. I guess this topic makes me a little angry. I get it. I'm also speaking from a position of privilege, and I understand that. I worked for years in pretty well-paid positions, and I haven't been a freelance starving artist in a long time. And now that I'm independent again, I have enough savings and support that I'm not worried about where my next meal is coming from. (From the Thai place down the street.) So I can afford to sit up here on my high chair and criticize.

Let me be clear: I criticize no one for going on Patreon. If they find success there, I celebrate that.

I guess all I'm saying is, is this what we've come to? Funding our artists one measly dollar at a time?

07/28/2014

Ah, the life of a freelancer. I remember it well. The glamour, the travel, the drinking... or wait, that wasn't me, that was my Katherine Hepburn fantasy. The real deal is the slog of never-ending work tightly coupled with the anxiety of never knowing when you'll have more work.

In that sense, Mondays are really just another day. But I still find Mondays particularly tough. Mondays actually start on Sunday night, when I log on to email, or review that to-dolist (which is in my head because I don't actually keep a to-do list. Maybe I should. Note to self: create to-do list.) After dinner at some point I'll wander away to my desk and start frantically trying to tap out 300 words here, 150 there, telling myself that doing that will make Monday easier...

When in fact what I accomplish is to ruin a perfectly good Sunday night.

So, no more of that. I'll enjoy my after-dinner Sunday beer and instead let the Monday open a new door to possibility. Yes, I have many things to write and finish up this week, but I'll get them done, and if I don't, well.

There's always next Sunday night!

But I digress. I wanted to write more about things that will keep me motivated this week:

On Writing: 10th Anniversary Edition: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. Just finished this last week, and while I can't say I've read a lot of his fiction, this memoir-slash-compendium-of-advice is inspirational. And hilarious. I forget how funny King can be. He writes about typing out Carrie in a laundry room while living on $6400 a year as a teacher. He writes about why his desk is not in the middle of the room. He confesses that he does not plot his books (this was particularly welcome to me, as I think I ODed on all those plot formula how-tos). There's a lot of wisdom here for all creators.

Inkheart (Inkheart Trilogy) by Cornelia Funke. Lovely Middle-Grade fantasy with charming characters and real stakes. It's about the power (and responsibility) of words and books! Plus it features a slightly dangerous but super cute marten named Gwin. Lots of imagery and evocative language, which I loved. I'm looking forward to reading Inkspell next.

The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan by Ivan Morris. Wonderful companion volume to Murasaki's Tale of Genji (which I am also reading but it is, needless to say, going a little more slowly.) It's not perfect -- in particular, Morris sometimes falls into old-fashioned gender constructions, although to his credit he is very conscientious about trying to understand the context and perspective of his subjects and combats his contemporaries' critiques of Heian courtiers as trivial aesthetes. It's gracefully written and fascinating and wide-ranging. Highly recommended.

So, let's go forth and create and make things! Hooray for Mondays!

[Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. Assuming I built them correctly. We'll see! I'm sure I'll be rolling in cash money in no time!]

07/24/2014

Ever since I got my iPad a few years ago, one of my favorite things to do has been to download ebook samples. Because why not? If I'm remotely interested in a topic or a cover, I'll download it. Back when I used to travel a lot, I'd download 20-30 samples before a flight, to keep me occupied.

Well.

This is a problem because I am a really fast reader. I have tried to slow myself down, but I can't help it. I just want to tear through the book as quickly as I can, I'm so eager to know what happens. And yes, I know, some books ought to be savored like a fine cognac and not gulped down like a shot and that is why I am also an incorrigible re-reader. I read the first time to find out what happens; then, if the book is good, I read the second time to savor. To delve. To get immersed in the language, the world, the characters. But you see, since I've already read the book, this second read goes pretty quickly too.

So, you have a situation when I have like 25 samples of wonderful books and a Buy It Now button... which means that my conversion rate from samples to full books is pretty high. I would estimate that it's at 50%. I should really go back and try to figure it out. But I suspect it's scary high. I've had to restrict myself from getting samples, because the temptation to buy becomes way too strong.

And that means that yes, I'm spending far, far too much money on books. (But! Books! And now I am no longer confined by space on the bookshelves! My books can roam free in the ether!)

The library, you say? Why yes. We have a wonderful library here in Santa Monica that also lets you borrow ebooks. But the other part of my problem is that I like to m guessing that it won't quite work for me because I like to hold on to my contents. They comfort me on a dark night, as I browse through past titles of books I have loved, liked, and hated passionately (there aren't that many of those but there are a few. FIFTY SHADES, I'M LOOKING AT YOU.) My preciousssss...

I warily checked out Kindle Unlimited, Amazon's new book streaming service. Book streaming? Books-on-demand? Book subscription? I get one month free. We'll see. I suspect I'll still want to HAVE the books rather than merely have access to them...

As a writer, I confess I'm leary of subscription models for books. I want to be optimistic. I want to embrace the new. But. We'll see.

In the meantime, I have sixteen brand-new samples I've got to get reading, so...

06/30/2014

In January, 2014, I quit my job and moved to a new city, where my partner had landed a job. Rather than look for a job myself, I decided to dedicate myself to writing full-time, and the two of us would live on one income, for one year.

Which was a thrilling, and also terrifying(!), decision.

On the one hand, I have this unprecedented chance to fully immerse in something I've wanted to do pretty much all my life (I have two decades of novels in various states of presentability -- most of them are better off buried in the hard drives!)

There's also a (crushing, at times) sense of responsibility. THIS IS MY CHANCE OMG DON'T SCREW IT UP. So that's productive.

It's taken me am embarrassingly long time to figure out what works. After so many years of having a schedule set for me -- arrive at work, read emails, respond to emails, go to meetings, complete tasks on deadline -- a day left totally open to me was as intimidating as a blank sheet of paper can be.

In the first month, I thought, well, I'll just write every day; how hard could it be? Turns out, it's hard! I don't know about you, but working from home has always been difficult for me. There are always so many other things to do. I'll sit down to write and then remember that I forgot to empty the dishwasher, or there's a load of laundry that could go in right now, or the dog will remind me that he'd like to sit in my lap or play with me or -- LOOK THERE'S THE POSTAL WORKER I MUST BARK AT HIM.

Then I started clocking my word counts, and that helped a lot. I started an excel spreadsheet and put all projects into it, and logged how many words per day I managed. For my personality, it was motivating, because I'd look at the count and think, okay, I managed 1800 words, what's 200 more? Let's try to get to 2000 today! And then when I got to 2000, I'd think, okay, maybe I could squeeze out another 250? What about 500? My daily goal was 2000, and with this system, I found myself exceeding it frequently. If I didn't meet it one day, I'd make it up the next day.

I tried setting up a schedule for myself, but I found myself breaking it constantly. When your days flow, it's easier to accommodate changes than when you are beholden to someone else, or a corporation. I'd get frustrated at the broken schedule, and I'd feel like the entire day would go past and I'd have gotten so little done that I felt depressed.

At about month three (I'm a slow learner) I noticed that when I was able to have a good, productive morning, my whole day was more productive. If I had a crappy morning of frustrations, chances were higher that my whole day would be almost a wash. So I decided to focus on strategies that would make my mornings the most productive and inspiring that they could be, and then let the afternoon be free to take care of itself.

Here's my morning routine (which, I should say, I am not able to follow EVERY day because, you know, life!):

1. Get up, make a green smoothie. This has replaced breakfast for me most days. I find it filling and energizing.

2. Take the dog for a walk. We try to walk for at least a half hour, and sometimes up to an hour. I try to use this time productively, to think about story points or work out some characterization problem as we walk, otherwise I find I start getting frustrated that I'm not at my computer writing.

3. Come home, make coffee, start writing. The most important part of this phase is a trick I learned from another writer/artist/creative friend of mine: no internet before noon. If I'm really stuck, I let myself look up something (if I'm writing a historical novel, for example) but no email, no reading blogs, no Facebook, no Twitter. I usually just switch off the wifi on my laptop, unless I'm working in Google Docs (which I've been doing more of recently.)

4. About half-way to noon (I start around 8 so that's usually 10 for me) I take a break and get a snack. Walk around. Stretch. Sometimes I'll also switch projects, or switch to working on something else within the project, unless I'm on a roll in which case I let myself ride it out. I find that, for me, my brain is not that good at focusing on ONE thing for more than two hours, so I let it do something else.

5. Noon: Make lunch.

By the time lunch hits, I have usually already made my 2000 word count (or very close to it), so after lunch is dedicated to things like catching up on news and blogs, posting on my own blog, working on other non-writerly things, running errands, and working out. The most important thing, though, is that the morning is complete and has been productive and inspired, because that sets me up for the rest of my day.

One thing I had to struggle with was fitting in exercise. In the past, I strongly preferred to exercise in the morning, when I'm at my most energetic. So I was torn for several weeks between wanting to write and wanting to work out. Both writing and working out make me feel really good, but writing felt like it was more pressing. Now that I'm half-way into month six of this routine, I think I want to try switching it up a little and fitting in a workout in the morning, after my walk. That will delay my writing start time by an hour and a half, but I can also move lunch out to 1:30 and still preserve the "no internet before lunch" rule.

03/06/2014

I love HBO's Looking for a simple reason: I know that city, and I know those people. I was friends with Patrick, Augustin, and Dom. Doris lived across the way from one of my best friends and had an addiction to Prada purses that she could ill afford. She had the best garage sales.

The city is the one I recognize instantly, from just after the first dot com bust: when the Mission was still affordable, when you could be an artist or a musician and live in the Bay Area, when you had a friend with a job at Zuni (oh my goodness, everyone had a friend who waited tables, if they weren't waiting tables themselves.)

oMa was still lined with delightfully seedy clubs and the Stud featured a night every Thursday for trans people. We actually did end up at the End Up; and we gathered at Doc's Clock after playing a rock show. The Folsom Street Fair was still a thing. (I know it's still a thing, but it's a different thing now.) I really miss that San Francisco.

The show is supposedly set in 2014 but all its sensibilities mark it as being a piece of retro nostalgia. Even the video game the Patrick is working on looks more 1999 than 2013. The locations, the fashions, all evoke the slouchy, simple time of the early 2000's.

12/02/2013

Mansfield Park remained for many years my least favorite Austen novel: the heroine so passive and mild, the moral themes so unyielding, and the injustices Fanny endures so extensive, that I found the novel often more pain than pleasure to read. I finished reading it again about a week ago, and I am more inclined to rate it higher. Of all Austen's novels it is, perhaps, the most critical of moral corruption and metes out more punishment to those who err. While Fanny remains very timid and quite unlike fan favorite Elizabeth Bennet, I had much more sympathy for her and respect for the delicate way Austen delineated her circumstance and portrayed her character. When Fanny does defy everyone she loves, that action is highlighted by her usual acquiescent nature and becomes a key pivot in the novel, while the comparabe scene of Lizzy standing up to Lady Catherine de Bourgh is just what we'd expect the lively Miss Bennet to do. Fanny is shown to be just as courageous and right-minded as all the Austen heroines, although much more shy.

For that reason, I find myself more disappointed by the 1999 film adaptation of the novel that previously. I like the film quite a lot -- I agreed with critics like Ebert and Holden that many of the changes from the novel are mostly welcome, and stay true to the spirit of Austen's work. But upon rewatching it right after I reread the novel, I was struck by how different the film Fanny is, and how much that change hurts the dramatic and satisfying character arc of the novel.

Fanny is shown from the very beginning of the film to be a sort of stand-in for Jane Austen herself: a writer, a keen observer of human nature, a lively spirit who loves horseback riding and describes herself as a "wild beast." She addresses the camera directly, recounting romances, like a Regency Carrie Bradshaw. How opposite from the novel's Fanny! She was scared of riding for many years and, it's implied, never got quite as comfortable on horseback as Mary does after just a few lessons. The novel's Fanny is timid, and doesn't dare to ask for anything due to her. She believes the best of everyone, even the odious Mrs. Norris. That, I've come to see, is her strength and core to the novel's theme. Austen's message is that even the most retiring, gentle, and accomodating woman can still hold on to her principles, challenge her entire family, and in the end, be utterly vindicated for staying true to her values. If Fanny is made into the sort of woman who naturally speaks up and defies authority, even making saucy remarks to her relations, that message is lost. Austen recognized that not all women are Elizabeths and Emmas, and she showed that even reserved Annes and Fannys can still find happiness in the integrity of their thoughts, feelings, and actions. It is a shame the film erases this critical point.